Bloodshed of the Mountain Man Read online

  “I hope Reece is right,” Newell said. “I hope this coach is carrying money. I would hate to think we waited out here half a day for nothin’.”

  “According to Reece, it’s s’posed to be carryin’ fifteen hundred dollars. If the money ain’t there, Hannibal will deal with ’im,” Taylor said.

  By now the four men could hear the sound of the stage, the driver’s whistles, the snap of his whip, and the squeak and rattle of the coach as the horses labored to pull it up the long grade.

  “Get ready,” Taylor said. “Don’t nobody show yourself ’til the coach comes to a stop ’n all the passengers get out to take a piss, or whatever it is they’re goin’ to do. Then we’ll shoot the shotgun guard. That’ll get their attention.”

  It took another couple of minutes before the coach reached the top of the hill.

  “Whoa!” the driver shouted, pulling back on the reins. The team stopped, one of the horses whickered, and another stomped his right foreleg. The driver set the brake on the coach.

  “All right, folks,” the driver called back. “We’re goin’ to be here about ten minutes to let the horses take a blow. You may as well take a break. If you’ve got a need for the necessary, ladies to the left side of the road and gents to the right.”

  Three men and two women got out of the coach. Apparently none of them had a need to do anything, because all five of them just stood by the right, rear wheel. A few of them stretched to work out the kinks from sitting so long in one place.

  “Now!” Taylor shouted. He and the three men with him jumped out from behind a rock, with their guns drawn.

  “What the hell!” the guard shouted, as he reached for the shotgun that was standing in the corner of the driver’s boot.

  Four shots rang out, and the guard fell back onto the seat.

  One of the passengers drew his gun, and Taylor turned on him. The passenger was shot down before his pistol was able to clear leather.

  The other passengers put their hands in the air.

  “That’s more like it,” Taylor said. “Now, you, driver, throw down that strongbox.”

  “What makes you think there’s any money in it?” the driver replied.

  “Driver, the only reason you’re still alive is because I don’t want to go to the trouble of climbing up there to get the box myself. Now, I ain’t a goin’ to tell you again. Throw it down!”

  The driver did as he was told. Taylor shot the lock off the box, opened it, then took out three bound packets of bills.

  “Well, it seems our information was right, after all,” he said, showing it to the others with a big smile.

  “Can we go now?” the driver asked.

  “Yeah,” Taylor replied. The passenger he had shot was lying facedown on the road, groaning. “You folks get back into the coach and take him with you,” he said, pointing to the wounded man.

  The passengers reboarded, and the driver, after getting the go-ahead from Taylor, snapped his whip and called out to the team. Although they hadn’t been given the ten minutes of rest time required by the stage-line, they moved forward in a brisk trot.

  Half an hour later, Smoke stopped on a ridge just above the road leading into Brown Spur and took a drink of water as he glanced back toward the arriving stagecoach. Then, corking the canteen, he slapped his legs against the side of his horse and sloped on down the long ridge.

  Upon being told that Ned Condon, a man who had a ranch just outside Brown Spur, might be interested in buying his prize bull, Smoke had ridden over today to see if he could close the deal. But after he arrived in town, Smoke stopped first at the saloon, deciding that what he needed after the long ride over from Sugarloaf was a cool beer. As he tied Seven off at the hitchrail out front, the stagecoach he had seen earlier came rolling into town. It was moving at a fairly rapid clip, and its driver was calling out loudly enough to be heard even over the sound of the horses’ hooves and rolling wheels.

  “We’ve been robbed! Stagecoach was held up! We need the doc!”

  The coach stopped in front of the depot at the far end of the street, and several people, responding to the driver’s shout, crowded around it. Smoke wanted the beer, but he figured it could wait for a bit. He was curious about the stagecoach robbery so he walked down to join the others.

  “Hey, Lou, where’s Toby?” someone asked. “What happened to your shotgun guard?”

  “Toby was kilt, he was gut-shot. So was one of our passengers. We need a doctor.”

  “No need for the doctor now,” a man called from inside the coach. “Mr. Thomas is dead.”

  “Who done it?” someone asked. Smoke saw that the questioner was wearing a star.

  “It was Ghost Riders, Sheriff Brown.”

  “Ghost Riders? How many of ’em was it?”

  “They was only four,” the driver said. By now he had climbed down from the driver’s box.

  The star-packer shook his head. “If there was only four of ’em, it wasn’t the Ghost Riders. There’s more than two dozen of them.”

  “They was all wearin’ red armbands,” the driver said.

  “They were? Damn, it might have been them, then. Or, it might have been a bunch of outlaws that wanted to make you think they were Ghost Riders.”

  “How much did they get?” one of the other men standing around the stage asked.

  “I don’t know. They got the strong box, but I don’t have no idee how much was in it.”

  “Fifteen hundred dollars,” another man said. While all the other men were wearing denim trousers and cotton shirts, the man who responded was wearing a three-piece suit. “It was a money transfer coming to my bank. What I don’t understand, though, is how they knew about it.”

  “One of the outlaws said, ‘our information was right.’ They knew that the money was there,” the driver said.

  “Information?” the banker asked. “Where did they get the information? Did they mention any names?”

  “No, sir. All they said was, the information is correct.”

  “As soon as you’re finished here, Lou, I’d like for you and the passengers to come on down to the office and give me a report.”

  “All right, Sheriff Brown, we’ll be right down there,” the driver replied.

  Smoke returned to the saloon, which was called Bagby’s.

  There were four bar girls working the floor as Smoke stepped up to the bar.

  “Yes, sir?” the bartender asked.

  “I’ll have a beer,” Smoke said.

  The bartender drew a mug from the beer barrel. “They was some folks in here sayin’ that the Ghost Riders held up the stagecoach,” the bartender said as he set the mug down in front of Smoke.

  “Yes, that’s what the driver said.”

  “You know anything about these Ghost Riders?” the bartender asked.

  “Not much,” Smoke said, as he picked up the beer. “A friend of mine had a trail herd of his cattle stolen a few months ago. Apparently, the rustlers who did that were Ghost Riders.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. They killed all the drovers, then took the herd on in and sold it off as cool as you please,” the bartender said.

  “They didn’t kill them all. One survived.”

  “I hear tell that the Ghost Riders was up in Wyomin’ before they come down here. I don’t know what Wyomin’ did to get rid of ’em, but whatever it was, I’d like to see Colorado do the same thing, so’s maybe we could send them on down into New Mexico.”

  “If we did that, we would just be pushing them off on someone else,” Smoke said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Smoke didn’t try to explain his comment. Instead, he asked the bartender a question pertaining to his actual reason for coming to Brown Spur.

  “I’m here to see a man named Ned Condon. I’m told his ranch is near here,” Smoke said.

  “Yes, sir, his spread is called Wiregrass Ranch. It’s about five miles north of here. He and his wife live there. Nice young couple they ar
e too.”

  “He contacted me about buying a prime registered bull.”

  “Yeah, he was in here just the other day talking about a bull he was wantin’ to buy. Prince Dandy, I believe the critter’s name is.”

  “Yes, that’s his name,” Smoke said. “I own Prince Dandy.”

  “Well sir, I’m sure he’ll be glad to—”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a scream from upstairs. Looking up toward the landing immediately above them, Smoke and the bartender saw a young woman running from her room with a man chasing her.

  “Oh, I don’t like the looks of that,” the bartender said.

  “Damn you! Quit runnin’ from me, you bitch!” the man shouted, catching up with her just as they reached the top of the stairs.

  “I gave you your money back! Leave me alone!”

  “I don’t want my money back! You know what I want!”

  “Reece, you leave that girl alone!” the bartender shouted, pointing up at the man.

  “You stay the hell out of this, Bagby! I paid for my time with her,” Reece said. He grabbed the girl by her shoulder, but she twisted away from him.

  “No, I don’t want to be with you!”

  “Damn you!” The man slapped her hard, the slap causing her to fall down the stairs. She cried out in shock and fear, but the scream was cut short. Silently, she fell the rest of the way, coming to a halt at the foot of the stairs. Her head was twisted to one side and her eyes were open but glazed. From the way her head was twisted, Smoke knew that her neck had been broken.

  “Damn! Annie?” the bartender called in alarm.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I guess you ain’t goin’ nowhere now, are you, you bitch?” The man called down to her. “Now, get your ass back up here before I come down there and drag you back up.”

  One of the young women who had been working the bar ran over to the still, twisted form lying on the floor, then knelt down beside her.

  “How is she, Sue?” the bartender called.

  “I’m afraid she’s dead,” Smoke said quietly.

  Sue was holding her fingers to the girl’s neck. “Annie is dead, Bagby,” Sue replied, confirming Smoke’s observation.

  “Wait a minute!” the man who was standing at the top of the stairs said. “What do you mean, she’s dead?”

  “She’s dead,” Sue said again. “I can’t find a pulse.”

  “You killed her, Reece,” Bagby said.

  “I . . . I didn’t do this.”

  “The hell you didn’t!” Bagby replied. “You knocked her down the stairs.”

  “How do we know she’s dead, anyway? What does a whore know about findin’ a pulse?”

  “Sue, go get Sheriff Brown,” Bagby said.

  The young bar girl who had checked for the pulse stood up.

  “No you don’t! Now, you just hold on there,” Reece said, pointing toward Sue. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.” He pulled his pistol. “If you start toward that door I’ll shoot you. This was an accident. Yeah, maybe I hit her, but I didn’t intend to knock her down the stairs. And I ain’t goin’ to get hung because some whore slipped on the stairs.”

  “Put the gun away, Reece,” Bagby said.

  “You go to hell, Bagby. And you, stay where you are,” Reece shouted at Sue.

  “Reece, if you don’t put that gun away now, I’m going to kill you,” Smoke said. He spoke the words calmly so that they became a statement of fact, rather than a challenge.

  “Who asked you to butt into this? This ain’t none of your affair,” Reece said.

  “Actually, it is my affair. You’ve taken this public, first by killing that girl, then by threatening this one. This is the last time I’m going to tell you. Put that gun away now or I will kill you.”

  “Who are you kidding, Mister? Maybe you’re too dumb to notice, but it just so happens that I’m holding my gun in my hand. Your gun is still in your holster.”

  Smoke had already told him one last time, so he made absolutely no response to Reece’s comment.

  “I’m tired of talkin’ to you. I think I’ll just kill you now.” Reece swung his gun toward Smoke. Smoke drew his pistol so quickly that to the witnesses in the room it seemed as if the gun had appeared in his hand, almost as if by magic.

  Smoke and Reece fired at the same time. Reece’s bullet hit one of the liquor bottles behind the bar, sending the aromatic liquid spraying into the air. Smoke’s shot hit Reece high in the chest.

  Reece grabbed his chest, then fell forward, sliding down the stairs. Unlike Annie, Reece didn’t quite make it all the way to the bottom.

  “Damn! I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that!” one of the saloon patrons said.

  “Miss,” Smoke said to Sue. “Maybe you should go get the sheriff now.”

  The bar girl stood there, looking on in total shock. In less than a minute, she had seen two people killed.

  “Go ahead, Sue,” Bagby said.

  “All right.”

  Smoke turned to his beer as calmly as if nothing had happened.

  “Mister, I’ve seen Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin, and Clay Allison pull iron. But I’ve never seen anyone draw as fast or shoot as straight as the show you just put on here,” the bartender said.

  “I’m sorry it had to come to that,” Smoke said. “And I apologize for it happening in your saloon.”

  “Are you kidding? Reece was a madman. You saw what he did to Annie. And there was no better-natured girl anywhere. I had no idea he was beatin’ on her, or I would have never let him go upstairs with any of the girls in the first place.”

  Sue came back into the saloon with the same man Smoke had seen a few minutes earlier down at the stagecoach depot.

  “Bagby, I hear you’ve had a little trouble here,” the sheriff said.

  “Yeah, Sheriff Brown, we did. Reece killed one of the girls. Then this man . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Jensen,” Smoke said.

  “Mr. Jensen, here, killed Reece.”

  “I see.” The sheriff turned to Smoke. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “I told you what happened, Sheriff,” Bagby said.

  “I know you did. But seems like I ought to also hear it from the man that done the actual shootin’,” Sheriff Brown said.

  “This man, Reece, knocked a young lady down the stairs, and the fall broke her neck. When Mr. Bagby asked this young lady to go get you, Reece threatened to kill her. Then, when I intervened, he turned his gun on me, so I shot him.”

  “And here’s the thing, Sheriff. Jensen didn’t even have his gun drawn when Reece tried to shoot him.”

  The others in the saloon backed up both Smoke and Bagby’s account of the events.

  “Do you need me to come to the office and sign any kind of statement?” Smoke asked.

  “No, seeing as there’s no one here who disputes what you, Bagby, and Elegant Sue have told me, I would say that it was a justifiable shoot.”

  “Elegant Sue?”

  Sue smiled, displaying a dimple in her left cheek, and Smoke saw that there was an innocence about her, despite her profession.

  “That’s my name,” she said.

  “Well, Elegant Sue, you are a courageous young lady. You stood your ground when Reece threatened to shoot you.” Smoke smiled at her.

  “Thank you, sir,” Elegant Sue replied.

  “Anyone else want to tell me what they saw?” Sheriff Brown asked.

  Half a dozen people started talking at once then, and Sheriff Brown had to slow them down so he could get one report at a time. Every one of the witness accounts was the same. The shooting was entirely justified.

  “As far as I’m concerned, your shooting Reece probably saved the county the price of a new rope. If ever there was anyone goin’ to wind up gettin’ hisself hung, it was Lou Reece.”

  “Perhaps so,” Smoke said. “But I would just as soon not have been the one to save the county money like that.”

 
Sheriff Brown laughed. “I see your point,” he said.

  “Sheriff, if you don’t need me for anything else, I’m going to ride out to visit some with Ned Condon about a bull.”

  “Ned and Molly are just real good people,” Sheriff Brown said. “I wish we had more people like them. Ned would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it. Tell them both that I said hi.”

  “I’ll do that,” Smoke promised.

  After a ride of about twenty minutes, Smoke passed by a white sign that was posted just outside a white rail fence.

  WIREGRASS RANCH

  ESTABLISHED 1878

  Ned and Molly Condon, proprietors

  When Smoke rode up, he saw a young man who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties, pumping water into a bucket.

  “That water sure looks good,” he said.

  The man smiled at him. “Well come down off your horse and have a drink.”

  “I appreciate the offer, and I believe I will. You are Ned Condon?”

  “I am, sir,” Condon replied as he scooped up some water with the dipper and handed it to Smoke.

  “Thanks,” Smoke said, accepting it, then taking a long drink. He tossed out the last few drops and handed the dipper back to Condon. “Mr. Condon, I’m Smoke Jensen and I—”

  “Prince Dandy!” Condon said.

  “Yes.”

  “Come in, come in,” Condon said excitedly. “Have you had your supper?”

  “No, I haven’t; I thought I would get it at the hotel tonight.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll take your supper with us, and you won’t need a hotel either.”

  Ned Condon led Smoke into the house and called for his wife. “Molly, this is the man who is going to sell us Prince Dandy. He’s going to have supper and spend the night with us.”

  “Oh, how wonderful!” Molly said. “I’m just starting supper. Do you like pork chops?”

  “I love pork chops.”

  “While Molly is getting supper ready, come out with me and take a look at the place I’ve got fixed up for Prince Dandy. Why, he’ll have his own private stall that’s nicer than some of the hotels I’ve stayed at. But then, some of the hotels I’ve visited, like the ones in Hong Kong or Shanghai, are more like hovels than hotels.”